CSR has announced the SiRFstarV chipset, which can utilize multiple GNSS systems including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Compass (once operational). That sounds great, but I’m not sure we’ll see it in many handheld receivers. To date, I can only think of a couple of Garmin sportwatches that have incorporated SiRFstar IV chips.
Perhaps this is due to a patent suit a few years ago leaving manufacturers a little gunshy. It certainly isn’t because handheld owners are overjoyed with other brands of chipsets.
There’s more to this story, but I’m about to head out on a family trip, so I’ll just point you elsewhere for more analysis:
About Rich Owings
Very interresting. I’m happy to see another chipset supporting multi-GNSS/SBAS. I’m also happy to see them suporting inertial sensors for improving short term accuracy and WiFi for indoor positioning.
But yet I haven’t seen any mainstream chipset suporting multi band positioning for computing the ionospheric delay errors more accurately than with SBAS. The newest 9 GPS satellite support the public L2C in addition to the usual L1 C/A and the newest 2 even support L5. GLONASS transmit public signals on L1 and L2 bands for all but one satellite and Galileo will transmit open signals multiple bands (ex: L1, E5a, E5b).
By the way has anyone found the technical specs about these new chips such as sensitivity ? CSR seems much less open in this regard than SiRF.